


an embarrassment of riches

by transstevebucky



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ficlet Collection, Flirting, M/M, tags for ficlets in the notes of each chapter!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-11-01 07:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transstevebucky/pseuds/transstevebucky
Summary: Drabbles, short one-shots, and random bits of conversation that doesn't fit in any other fic. Each chapter will be rated differently.





	1. haircuts and revelations

**Author's Note:**

> since life is being a bastard to me and this is my one coping mechanism this is just a bundle of bits of fics i've written and never finished properly. enjoy!
> 
> ships are probably going to be predominantly desus, daaron, jaaron and jaaryl!

“Your hair needs a cut.” Paul nudges Daryl forward with a knee to the back, and Daryl shuffles on the log to accommodate him. “Are you going to let me do it?”

“I got a choice in the matter?” Daryl asks, and Paul flicks him in the ear and settles up against his back, warm and steady, heart beating like a metronome. 

It’s been a while since they’ve done this; Paul coming all the way out to Daryl’s place in the sticks, acting like there isn’t something bright and lurching between them. Been a while since Paul’s had to duck around Daryl’s insane traps and try not to get his ankle ripped off by a fucking pit of spikes. He hasn’t exactly missed that part of it, but he has missed Daryl.

Last time they saw each other the earth had been coated with snow, knee-deep and pristine. Daryl had come into Hilltop shuddering and halfway to pneumonia, Dog draped over his shoulders like the world’s heaviest scarf. 

He’d scared Paul witless and as a result had been confined to bed rest for a week and a half before he was even allowed to move around the colony, let alone leave and go back to being a depressed, homosexual hermit in the woods. 

“You do,” Paul tells him, but the truth is that he’d probably do it anyway. Maybe not right away, but when Daryl least expected it. He had a good feeling about not getting killed if he tried. “Maybe.”

Daryl huffs, and leans back, lets his head get cradled in Paul’s hands. Paul tries to pretend his breath doesn’t catch and stumble in his throat, but it doesn’t work that well. 

He slips the scissors out of his toolbelt (“Look like you’re ‘bout to go meet a bear from Grindr with a pocketful o’lube and a belly of regret,” Daryl had told him once, and Paul had laughed so hard he’d gotten a stomach ache) and pushes Daryl’s head forward.

“A little off the top?” Paul asks, teasing, and Daryl reaches back to slap his thigh.

Paul grins. He takes the scissors to the recently cleaned strands, fluffy and damp from the river water. Daryl smells like the earth, something rustic and thick that fills Paul up in a way nothing else seems to, any more. 

Daryl’s hair falls around his face, drapes like a curtain, and Paul is quick but careful where he puts the blades of the scissors. He takes off the split ends, removes some of the hair that’s gotten damaged.

“Looks like burns, here,” Paul says, rapping the blunted edge of the scissors against Daryl’s skull. Daryl hisses out a noise like a pissed off cat. “Did you manage to set fire to yourself again?”

“One time,” Daryl mutters, but there’s a grin in his voice, something secret and warm. “Nah, forgot to put out a smoke ‘fore I put it there.”

Paul snorts. “An accomplished man as always, Dixon.”

“Fuck off.”

They’re quiet, for a while, letting the sounds of Daryl’s little safe haven wash over them.

It’s not exactly Paul’s favorite place. But it’s as safe as anywhere without walls could be, guarded by Daryl and his softie of a hellhound, so he deals with it. And Daryl’s here, too, which makes up for far more than it should.

“You not gonna try and convince me to come back with you?” Daryl asks, voice barely a murmur. If Paul weren’t so close nor so attuned to his every move, he mightn’t have heard it.

“Would it work if I did?” He questions back, and taps at the side of his head to make him turn. He starts on the ragged edges around his ears, taking away the overlong bangs and trying to fix them enough so he can at least see.

“Maybe.” 

Paul pauses. His hands twitch for a moment, and he swallows.

Five and a half years of this, of wanting and waiting and of all of them begging for Daryl to come back, to come home. Of Daryl chasing Rick’s ghost and avoiding Michonne and the kids like the plague, of meeting Paul and Aaron and Maggie and Gracie in secret, of Carol and Tara dropping off care packages.

“What’s different?” His hope for his voice not trembling doesn’t go off so well.

“You,” Daryl responds, voice a little unsteady himself. Paul should put the scissors down before he kills them both by accident. “And, you know. If Rick were…” His voice cracks, and Paul wonders not for the first time about what their relationship was really about. Daryl called him _brother_, but there was always something in his eyes when he said it that spoke to more, to something forever unspoken. A bond far greater than brotherhood or companionship. Something more like soulmates. 

Maybe romantic. Maybe not. 

And nothing, any more, if Rick truly is dead.

(Sometimes, Daryl’s belief in Rick being alive makes Paul angry. Other times, it makes him wonder.)

“If Rick were here, he’d be tellin’ me not to be such a stubborn sonuvabitch. To lean on people.” He huffed, and little clouds of hair clippings drift to the grassy floor beneath them. “And he’d tell me to stop tryna make excuses an’ admit I’m maybe, uh. Headoverheelsforya.”

The last part comes out in such a messed up rush that it takes a moment for Paul to parse it through Daryl’s grunting, low voice. When he does, he finally drops the scissors and makes a noise like he just got punched in the nuts.

“Yeah?” He murmurs, a little breathless, and Daryl twists in front of him, back pressing heavily against Paul’s knees, smile twitching onto his thin mouth, eyes bright blue in the sunset.

“Yeah, Rovia,” he whispers, and finally they’re face to face, inches apart, and Paul’s breathing so hard it’s like he’s just gone through a mob of walkers. “I’ll come home to you.”

“Lame,” Paul mutters, flushing, and Daryl slaps him on the hip and leans in to kiss him. “Oh.” He takes a sharp breath. “Less lame. Keep doing that.”

“Maybe if you shut up, I could.” Daryl sighs, like he’s been deeply put upon.

“Oh!” Paul grins, laughs against Daryl’s mouth, “alright. Come on home, sugar.”

“Christ.” Daryl groans, hands cradling Paul’s face in his hands, eyes flicking over him like he’s taking in some brilliant piece of art. “I’m already regretting this.”

He grins into the kiss, and even with a mouthful of split-ends and hair between his teeth, it’s maybe the best kiss Paul’s ever had.

“Does this mean I have to get a dog bed?” Paul asks, later, sweaty and shirtless, leaves in his hair. “Or are you fine sleeping in my bed?”

Daryl kicks him.


	2. baby, you were a vampire (and i'm the walking dead)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl just wanted to get his goddaughter some peanuts. 
> 
> One mild car accident later and he's got a vampire sat in the seat next to him, sucking his fingers like a pornstar.
> 
> This is not ideal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags for this chapter: daryl/jesus, vampires, blood mentions, flirting, canon typical gore
> 
> i wrote this at some point in 2018 and just found it in a draft. i might continue with it at some point, but for now this is all i had!

It starts with a thump.

Well. More accurately, it starts with blue-grey eyes staring at him through a curtain of blond curls, a wobbly bottom lip, and a promise to get her as many packets of peanuts as he can find.

It starts with him waving goodbye through the gate as he drives out, Rick’s grin wide on his face.

It starts with Paul Rovia and his undead smirk as he leans across the hood of the car and winks at him.

It starts, Daryl thinks, with heartache, and the resounding truth of this being his inevitable downfall.

+++

Daryl’s been fighting the shambling dead for close to four years, now. He’s seen completely goddamn naked corpses crawling across grass towards him and felt intestines drop wetly onto his skin, he’s killed God knows how many just to protect those he loves.

This is a new brand of undead. This, in the middle of Virginia, outside a long-since abandoned convenience store, is some truly ungodly shit.

“What,” he starts, staring at the sprawled body of a too-attractive man, feet tucked under his car, “the fuck.”

“Hey.” The man says, and nods a salute at him. “Could you give me a hand up?”

Daryl obliges. Fifty miles away, Carol commends his manners. 

The guy dusts off his coat (thick leather, down to his mid-thigh) with gloved hands, arranges his beanie back on his head, holds out a hand. “Paul Rovia. My friends call me Jesus.”

“Daryl Dixon,” Daryl tells him, and then, because he can’t resist, “Jesus known for not bein’ visible in mirrors?” 

The guy- Paul-, gives him a smile, leans over across the car, crosses his hands under his chin. He looks almost offensively pretty like this, all big blue eyes and pouting mouth, and it makes Daryl _itch_. There’s something off about him, but not in the rotting-corpse way Daryl’s used to. 

“Aren’t you a clever boy,” Paul says, with something close to a leer. “But, no, Jesus doesn’t. Vampires, however…”

“You’re a vampire.”

Daryl scrolls back through all of the fiction he’s read over the course of his life. Thinks about the way Beth had coaxed him into grabbing almost-pristine copies of _Twilight_ from a bookstore, back when they were at the prison, how she’d regularly fallen asleep with it across her chest.

Paul just lets him process, chest pressed to sun-warmed metal.

It’s that thought that makes him say, “you’re a vampire, an’ you choose to stay in fuckin’ Virginia?”

Paul, already offensively pretty, throws back his pale throat and laughs, sweet and hoarse. “Most people take more convincing than that.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, and thinks _what the fuck_, “what’s one more livin’ dead prick in the world?”

Paul nods, smiles, eyes crinkling. Extends a hand. 

Daryl takes it and shakes it. Notes how warm Paul’s skin feels under his fingers, through the leather, when he’d naively been expecting something cold.

“I like you, Daryl Dixon,” Paul tells him.

Daryl swallows, and knows he’s in for a world of pain.

+++

Paul Rovia, as it turns out, was not fucking lying.

Daryl’s working his way through the store on quick, light feet when the rumbling groan of a walker makes itself known, two aisles over.

Paul’s closest, and Daryl flinches, sure he’s about to see another person ripped to shreds, even as he’s pointing and aiming his bow, but then the walker just… Moves around him. Like Paul isn’t even _there_.

The walker lands with a thump. Horrifyingly similar to the noise Paul’d made when Daryl had backed into him in the lot, because he hadn’t shown up in the mirror at all.

“Christ,” Daryl says, and when Paul opens his mouth to presumably make a joke, adds, “don’t.”

He collects the bolt. Stares hard at Paul. Paul stares back, utterly relaxed, hands swinging at his sides.

“So.” He doesn’t know where he’s going with this. “You’re… Dead.”

“Mhm.”

Daryl squints. Tilts his head. “How long you been dead, exactly?”

Paul wrinkles his nose, closes his eyes. Daryl thinks he’s pissed him off, for a second, before he responds, and then realises he was thinking. He stores the information away (what Paul looks like when he’s thinking) into a little vault in the back of his brain.

“About three years,” Paul says, “after everything went to shit, anyway. I don’t keep a calendar. I met someone, on the road. Big dude. Really nice, friendly. Younger looking than me but… Older, you know? Like, his eyes looked older. Turns out he was a vampire. And I got hurt. Some idiot shot me, I was going to die, and Pete, that was his name, he turned me. Asked me first, obviously. So, here I am.”

At this last part, Paul raises his arms out like the Christ Redeemer, grin stretching almost to his ears, it’s so wide.

“And now you ain’t gotta worry about the other dead ones, huh?”

It’s obvious, but he wants to be sure. Paul nods, tongue between his teeth.

“Unexpected bonus.”

Daryl leans back against a shelf and thinks. Alright. So. Vampires are real. That’s fine. It’s not like he hasn’t seen some fucking bizarre shit in his time, even before the Turn. He’s used to adding things to his repertoire; he’d be a shit hunter if he didn’t regularly reassess what he knows.

Adding another thing to the list isn’t exactly world-tilting. Just sort of. Weird. Weirder than working out how to track a sick cat through the woods, anyway.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Paul asks, cocking his head. “You’re not going to stake me? Use me like a kebab?” “Nah,” Daryl shrugs, shoulders his crossbow, “not unless you’re gonna eat me.”

“No promises.”

Daryl doesn’t grin. He just happens to be real invested in years-old ramen packets, that’s all.

+++

Turns out Paul has a settlement, some place run by a smarmy prick that’s almost entirely self-sufficient, and he hitches a ride to Alexandria to talk through the idea of trade.

“Hilltop’s low on ammo,” Paul explains, feet up on the dash. He’s searching around in his pockets for something, and makes a satisfied little noise when he finds it. “We’re good for food, though, and judging by the fact you’re half skin and bones, I’m guessing that’s not true for your people.”

Daryl glances down at himself, one hand on the wheel, foot on the accelerator. He’s lost weight, sure, since Alexandria’s crops got infected, but not too much to be noticeable. Or so he thought, anyway. Rick hasn’t mentioned anything about him giving his rations to Judy and Carl, at least, which is usually what happens when he starts getting gaunt.

Paul extends a hand, and Daryl blinks at the little packet of… red somethings. 

“Whassat?”

Paul shrugs. “Blood Jell-o.”

Daryl recoils enough that the car veers across the road, and he has to yank it back on course with a creaking groan of metal. 

When Daryl glances back at him, he’s got a mouthful of blood gelatine and a twinkle in his eyes that spells trouble.

“Where do you get the, uh.” He blinks, fights back nausea as he remembers those goddamn Termites, “blood from, anyway? Dead’uns?”

“Gross.” Paul remarks, and licks his fingers clean of any stickiness. Daryl hadn’t noticed before, but his teeth are just slightly sharper and longer than normal teeth. Not enough to notice if you’re just glancing, but visible if you’re looking for it. “No. I have an agreement with one of the cooks; I hunt and give her the animals, as long as she gives me the blood she drains out of them. It’s not as effective as human blood, but. Almost.”

Daryl thinks about Paul draped over someone, teeth sinking into supple skin, and has to fight back a blush. Not the time. “You’ve drank from people?”

“A couple times.” Paul nods, and crosses his fingers on his lap, turning in his seat to face Daryl. His gaze is intense, even without Daryl looking back, and it makes something funny swirl in his gut. “A lot of men get kinky at the end of the world.”

Jesus fucking Lord and hell. “Alright.”

The road is clear, but there’s a little farm down a ways that Daryl’s been meaning to check out for a while but couldn’t alone. But since he’s got a bonafide immune undead bastard to help, now… “Get your stuff, we’re lookin’ for supplies.”

Paul simpers, eyelashes fluttering as he leans in close. “Yes, daddy.”

Daryl is going to kill himself before he even gets Judith her damn peanuts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gayjaaryl on twitter and gaydaryl on tumblr!


	3. three men and a baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron moves to Hilltop with Gracie.
> 
> It goes about as well as anyone could expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags for this chapter: daryl/jesus/aaron, parenting, daryl being the Softest with kids, flirting
> 
> i found this in my drafts and figured it needed to be posted SOMEWHERE, before i forgot all about it again. like vamp paul, this might be continued at a later date, but also like vamp paul, for right now this is it.

In hindsight, Daryl probably should have seen this coming.

+++

Aaron slumps down against the wall, arm thrown over his face and breathing heavy. There’s a stack of boxes by the trailer door, and vomit coating his shoulder. The trip from Alexandria to Hilltop’s not as long in a car as it could be by horse or, God forbid, walking, but Aaron had showed up at the gates looking like he’d walked into hell anyway.

Apparently little Gracie gets travel sickness.

Daryl rocks Gracie in his arms, slow and steady, the way he knows she prefers. He rubs one warm hand down her back, hushing her softly every time she whimpers. “You good?”

Aaron pulls his arm away from his face. “I smell like puke.”

Jesus snorts where he’s sitting crisscross applesauce on the table, abandoned book splayed out on one knee. “You could go shower, you know. It’s not the kind of luxury you’re used to, with your bougie hot showers and massage sprays, but…”

Aaron glares, but it’s weak. His eyes are red-rimmed with exhaustion, curls a mess around his head, and his beard looks like it’s about four months past _needing a trim_ and has ascended into _possible folk God _levels of unkempt. The empty sleeve of his shirt is pinned up to his shoulder, and even after all this time Daryl keeps doing a double take, expecting the second hand to still be there.

“I’d happily jump in a lake, I think.” Aaron makes a grabby hand for Gracie, and Daryl passes her over carefully, stroking her blonde head reverently as she settles into the crook of Aaron’s arm. “I don’t suppose you have any baby shampoo?”

Jesus clicks his tongue. “Cabinet under the sink. Maggie likes to drop Hershel off in the morning so she can make the rounds.” He grins, pink mouth going wide, teeth peeking out over the soft flesh. “You wanna get baby smooth, Aaron?”

Aaron rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile somewhere, hidden behind his wildman beard.

Daryl tries not to think about Aaron’s body under his clothes and swallows hard against a noise that is not, in any way, a whimper. “Normal shit’s in the tray in the shower. If you wanna wash up first, me’n Jesus can clean Grace up?”

Jesus makes a noise that very clearly means _you, specifically, can clean the kid up_, but he nods in Aaron’s direction anyway. 

“Thanks, but,” Aaron presses a soft kiss to Gracie’s feather-soft head. She moves into it with a giggle, legs kicking against his side. She’s growing like a damn weed. “I’ve got it down. I’ll yell if I need help. If you could sort out the boxes, though…”

Daryl’s already moving to open said luggage, kneeling down so he can root around and find some new clothes for both Aaron and his girl. “Got it.”

“You’re lifesavers,” Aaron tells them both, and then promptly disappears into the trailer’s tiny bathroom. Gracie reaches around the door to wave them goodbye, chubby little fist opening and closing.

+++

“Do all babies smile this much? I swear Hershel is grouchier than this,” Jesus wonders, shaking Gracie’s little fist and making her squeal.

She’s covered head to toe in soft, foamy lather, light hair turned gold under the water, and she looks every bit as angelic as Daryl remembers Judith looking when she’d been this small. “They all have different personalities. Hershel might jus’ not like you, is all.”

Jesus shoots him a wounded look but blows a raspberry on Gracie’s cheek that makes her kick her tiny chubby legs in excitement. “She’s cute.”

“She is.” Daryl already feels that tight ache in his chest, the longing for a kid of his own. He used to get it all the time with Judith. Carl, too, whenever the kid acted like his age and not the young man he’d had to grow into so fast. Rick used to tell him that Gracie was all of theirs, that she was the product of the best family she could ever have, but it wasn’t the same as being a father. 

He covers her eyes as he rinses out her hair and body, and presses a kiss to one of her fat little fists before he picks her up. “Alright, little miss. I’ve gotta pick you up now and get you dry, alrigh’? And then we gotta get you dressed so you stay nice’n warm. I know you might not wanna be held, and that’s okay, but I gotta do this to keep you happy and safe.”

Gracie cocks her little head at him and blows a raspberry, clumsily grabbing for his goatee. He takes that as a yes.

He doesn’t notice the look on Jesus’ face, but if he did it’d make him go pink to his damn tits.

+++

Aaron comes out of the shower looking, if not less tired, then at least a little less like he’s fought a baby and lost.

“Thanks,” he sighs, and curls Gracie into his chest with his one arm, pressing his mouth to her fluffy head. “Was she good for you?”

“She’s an angel.” Jesus assures, and pats Aaron on the shoulder. “You’ve done good, okay?”

Aaron’s face twists like he’s close to the end of his rope and one more nice thing might make him cry, so Daryl sits next to him and rolls his shirt up until he can see the full extent of the stump. “You gettin’ any pain in this?”

Aaron huffs. “More phantom pain, than anything. Like I still have fingers and a hand, you know? Sometimes I go to pick her up with both arms and then…” He makes a shrugging motion, scars dark and ropey and thrown into sharp relief with the motion.

“Yeah. Hershel -Maggie’s dad, not the baby-, he used to get that. Said it felt like buzzin’ in his feet.” He prods at the scar tissue, feels anguish clutch him by the throat and shake him like a ragdoll. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save it, man. We’re looking into prosthetics, huntin’ down places that might have ‘em, if you wanted one.”

Aaron smiles, a little wan, tired and worn down but so gorgeous it makes Daryl’s chest bubble. “That’d be nice. I’d like to be able to feel like I can kill walkers again without being a liability.”

Jesus hums, sitting on the back of the couch, knees digging into Aaron’s shoulders. The very picture of relaxation. “I could always teach you how. I had to learn how to do it with one arm for a while when I was a teenager.”

“It takes you two hands to jerk off?” Daryl asks, unable to resist, and Aaron squawks and covers Gracie’s ears.

“She is delicate! No talking about that around the infant!”

Daryl grins in apology but leans closer to Jesus to hear his response all the same, weight pressing into Aaron and making him tilt in place. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jesus purrs, eyes dark, and Daryl jerks back with a flush on his cheeks.

“I already regret moving here,” Aaron announces.

Between he and Daryl, Gracie let out a burble of laughter.

Aaron grunts. “Traitor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gayjaaryl on twitter, gaydaryl on tumblr


	4. kiss me once, kiss me twice (kiss me once again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl, Paul and Aaron knew each other when they were kids.
> 
> Or: how twenty-five years isn't forever, and some kinds of love never die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags for this chapter: **alternate universe -childhood friends, friends to lovers, reunited, first kiss **
> 
> relationship: ** paul/daryl/aaron **
> 
> in this au aaron lost eric before the turn, though it isn't mentioned in-fic (i wrote this in about an hour with only emotions about how these three have such similar childhood experiences and how they'd empathize so well with that, so i ignored a lot of canon). any mistakes are entirely my own because i got attacked by gay feelings at 9am

“It’s you.”

The breath rushes out of Daryl’s lungs, crossbow dropping to his side in shock. His heart feels like it’s cracking through his ribs, and he staggers forward a couple steps without planning to.

“Daryl?” The man says, eyes wide as his hands reach out and then drop when the group shifts readily behind them. And it’s Aaron, fuck, it really is. Those goddamn eyes, those curls, the slightly gawky look that he never grew out of, apparently. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Yeah.” Daryl swallows, and lurches forward to hug Aaron, relieved that it’s returned in its intensity, that Aaron feels just as off-kilter as he does. 

His family shifts behind him, and he takes a heaving breath and pushes back from Aaron, waving weakly at him. 

“This is Aaron,” he manages to get out, voice a little wet, “we knew each other when we were kids.”

And isn’t that putting it lightly.

+++

Will Dixon didn’t like Daryl palling around with the kids from school. Will Dixon didn’t much like anything, though, so as much as he could Daryl ignored him and did what he wanted, whenever he could.

Not many people wanted to be friends with him, anyway, with his dirtied name and his filthy clothes, constantly stinking of the woods and his pa’s beer.

Aaron, though, he didn’t take any notice.

He’s a weird-looking, lanky kid. Had a growth spurt early that made his limbs look longer than they should, curly hair always trimmed meticulously, military-style. Wide blue eyes that made Daryl’s stomach twist weirdly in on itself and his cheeks heat whenever he felt their gaze on his face.

Daryl’d been getting hassled by one of the other well-off kids, pushed around and spat at, when the kid had come rushing over and told all the bullies to ‘quit it and go back to being useless toerags!’

Daryl had gotten pissed, at first, before he realised Aaron didn’t pity him. He had bruises on his wrists and a smack-mark on his face, and Daryl’s back throbbed in sympathy when Aaron winced on a step.

He’d seen him around, of course, since the school was tiny. He didn’t think anything of him, much. He knew he got bothered by the older kids, got slurs shouted at him, and faced with Aaron’s earnest face he hated himself a little for never stepping in.

“I,” Daryl started, and the bell rung but Aaron didn’t make any moves to get to class, “you that new kid?”

He’d caused a stir, when he’d first come. Apparently his dad was military, or some shit, a nice military family with a proper son. Except the son was too nice and sweet and in backwoods Georgia that got ‘queer’ spraypainted on your locker and a couple of cracked ribs, if you were lucky.

New people tended to stay away from that area.

“Yeah. I’m Aaron,” Aaron had confirmed, “you’re Daryl, right? Dixon?”

Daryl had bristled, ready to be laughed at, but instead Aaron had shoved out a hand and shook it, heedless of the way it jerks his bruised arms around. 

“Nice to meet you, Daryl Dixon,” Aaron had grinned, all teeth and crinkled eyes that made something swirl in Daryl’s guts, hot and fiery, “do you want to be friends?”

+++

Their friendship was cemented fast, after that.

They did everything they could with each other. Daryl took Aaron into the woods, a couple times, to show him how to track. Aaron stepped loud and scared off the game and he didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he knew Daryl didn’t eat if he didn’t hunt, so he declined any further offers.

Mostly they hung around in town or the library, which is somewhere Will Dixon wouldn’t look for his kid no matter how pissed off he was. 

And that’s where they met Paul.

Paul, at age eleven, had been a scrawny little thing. Stick-thin and a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas, he’d immediately tried to leave when Aaron started a conversation with him.

Paul was a home kid, one of the ones from the big compound outside of town. None of those kids were treated well, never ate well, and Paul seemed the worst of the lot. He constantly had hollows under his eyes from lack of sleep, cheeks sallow and gaunt, and flinched at any unexpected contact.

Daryl guessed that, as an older kid of the group, he took his share of beatings and punishment to spare the younger ones any more pain than being at the mercy of a broken system already gave them.

He got roped into their friendship quick. Aaron was hard to say no to, and Daryl could be nice when he wanted, and Paul was _funny_, even if he was a little weird.

From that point on it was the three of them, constantly together, sharing homework and food between them. Daryl let Aaron and Paul get close to him. Paul taught Aaron and Daryl some martial arts. Aaron managed to wrangle his way into getting them into classes together; Daryl and Aaron had been anyway, but Paul was a couple years below. He’d been advanced enough the school allowed it without too much pressure.

Paul helped patch up Daryl’s wounds. Daryl gave Aaron food that his mom didn’t try and force down his throat. Aaron helped with babysitting the younger kids at the home when the adults shirked their duties.

And then, as quickly as their friendship seemed to become routine, Aaron turned up in their little section of the library with tears in his eyes.

“Dad’s moving again.” He’d said, and Paul had hugged him tight and Daryl had tried not to cry, too, when he kept going, “we’re going to _Germany._ We can’t even stay in the c-country!”

They helped Aaron pack. It took nearly a week to get everything put away, and by the end they were exhausted and emotionally wrung out. They’d all cried an embarrassing amount, and on the last day, when Aaron was due to leave, he sat down in his room and they both leaned their heads on his shoulders.

“I love you both so much,” Aaron said, voice so low and tremulous it was barely even there, “you were the good things. You were all I cared about.”

Daryl had made a broken, wounded noise. Paul had just gripped onto Aaron’s hand and not let go.

When they kissed him, at the same time, mouths pressed clumsily to his cheeks, Aaron cried so hard he shook all over.

Waving him goodbye hurt like a pressed upon bruise. 

Paul didn’t let go of Daryl’s hand for hours.

So it was Daryl and Paul, for a while. A few months after Aaron left, Paul looked up from his comic and mumbled.

“Huh?” Daryl had asked, confused, and Paul had sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“They’re moving me,” he muttered, and the bottom dropped out of Daryl’s stomach and left him feeling utterly bereft, “I’m too old for this place, now, so I’m going to another place in the West.”

“But,” Daryl said, “you look after all those kids, there, an’-.”

“I know.” Paul had taken a sad, shaking breath. “I’m so sorry, Daryl. I don’t want to go, I really don’t. I wish I could stay here, so you had somewhere to-.” He’d cut himself off. They didn’t talk much about Will Dixon, no matter how many times Daryl turned up to meet either Aaron or Paul with a limp and blood stained hands. “I’m just sorry.”

“S’fine,” Daryl said, but it wasn’t. Not really. He wasn’t angry at Paul, or Aaron, but it fucking _hurt_. He’d gotten used to having people he cared about, and now they’d be gone. Again. He’d be left alone with his dad and Merle, if he ever came back, and he wouldn’t even be able to get his wounds patched by Paul, any more. “I get it. Hope it’s nice for you, there, better’n here.”

“_Nowhere_ is better than here,” Paul insisted vehemently, and kissed him.

It was the first real kiss he’d ever had. The ones they’d given Aaron had been goodbyes, too, but not in the way that was.

It was hot and aching and left Daryl wanting so much more, but they couldn’t get it. 

“I’mma miss you,” Daryl said, mouth pressed clumsily to Paul’s forehead, “really. I love you, y’know?”

Paul took in a sharp breath and nodded. “You, too. I love you, too.”

Paul got taken to Mississippi the next day, and they didn’t see each other, after that.

+++

“Why didn’t Rick want to go with you, again?” Aaron asks, pulling up to the abandoned gas station. 

“‘Cause he and Michonne are horny assholes, that’s why,” Daryl snarks, and Aaron grins at him before opening the door and getting out.

The vending machine’s upside down, but, “I got an idea. Hook her up.”

“And other things that a gay man has never heard,” Aaron mumbles, but attaches a chain between the truck and the machine, anyway.

He’s just gotten in the cab to tip the thing over when Daryl gets the wind knocked out of him.

He raises his gun immediately, and Aaron looks at him through the mirror with wide eyes and a motion that says _I’ve got you_. 

“Back up,” Daryl grits, keeping the gun level with the asshole’s head, but the guy freezes and staggers back, none of the smooth cockiness with which he’d shoved Daryl moments before. “Fuck’s your deal?”

The man shakily raises a hand and pulls down his bandana, and Daryl drops his gun to the floor.

“Paul?”

“Daryl?”

Daryl swallows convulsively, hands twitching with the want to go towards Paul and touch. “Hell’re you here for?”

“I could ask you the same thing, you Georgia asshole,” Paul says, and his face splits into a dazzling grin before he tackles Daryl in a hug.

“Wait!” Daryl gasps out, “wait!”

“What?” Paul asks, jerking back, glancing around wildly, and then seeming to just stop functioning. “Oh, my God. What the fuck.”

Aaron stares at them both from besides the truck cab, using it to hold himself up. He’s deathly pale, but his eyes are glittering. “Reunion tour.” He laughs, and Paul stares between them both and makes a noise like a strangled cat.

“No one ever tells me _anything_,” he says, and is immediately crushed into a hug between both Daryl and Aaron, breath wheezing up desperately.

Daryl meets Aaron’s eyes over Paul’s head -little shit stayed as short as ever-, and feels so overwhelmed with emotion that he nearly pukes.

“Is anyone else thinking threesome,” Paul asks, voice small and sniffling, “or is that just me?”

And maybe they’ve spent years apart, maybe it’s been nearly twenty-five goddamn revolutions around the sun, but they all laugh exactly the same way.

Fuck. It’s good to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as ever, i'm gayjaaryl on twitter and gaydaryl on tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gaydaryl on tumblr and gayjaaryl on twitter!


End file.
